Recent Posts

Which Social Media Sites Should My Business Advertise On?

With an abundance of social media sites now available to businesses, it can be difficult for business owners to know where to invest their time and money when it comes to their social media marketing.

Of course, there are many different factors that affect which social media sites would work best for you, from budget, time, and staff to, most importantly, your business industry.

In general, we recommend that at an absolute minimum, all businesses should at least have a presence on Facebook and Twitter, regardless of their industry and marketing budget. This is based on the fact that from our experience, no matter the industry, a huge number of your target audience spend a considerable time on these two sites, both in and out-of work.

For those that would like to go it alone though, we have created a quick breakdown of some popular business industries and the social media sites that tend to work well for them, helping you to work out which social media sites may generate the best returns for you when it comes to your marketing.

B2B Businesses

For the vast majority of B2B businesses, there are two social media sites that trump the others when it comes to them gaining returns on their advertising spend: Facebook and LinkedIn.

It is interesting to note that more often than not, the reason for the success of the two sites is very different.

LinkedIn is traditionally the social media site for business professionals, which makes this recommendation an unsurprising one. With more businesses becoming concerned with the reputation and ethics of their business suppliers, LinkedIn is not only great place to showcase your companies’ culture, employees, and content, but also to advertise its services/products to a relevant audience.

Should you wish to invest in the platform a little more, and you have a firm idea of your target audience, LinkedIn allows you to run powerful advertising campaigns, which allow you to target users based on everything from job title, industry, location, and much more. Given the level of detail you can filter by, LinkedIn is a great advertising platform should you have a solid idea of your target audience.

LinkedIn also allows you to serve advertisements on their site to users who have previously visited your website. This can often prove to be a very cost-effective and successful way of advertising, not least because you can show adverts based on the specific pages the user visited on your website.

While Facebook is not traditionally associated with business professionals in the same way as LinkedIn is, it is equally important because of the amount of time we as a society spend on it, whether it be on our lunch break, sitting on the sofa, or on the commute home from work.

As touched upon earlier, retargeting on Facebook can also prove to be a very successful tactic, with it giving the impression that your business operates across the board. It crucially also catches the attention of your prospects outside of their working-hours, a tactic that many businesses under-utilise.

Sometimes, even the fact a prospect has seen you to be visible on the world’s largest social media site can prove to be the final push they need, with your sheer association with Facebook being enough to convince them that you are a trustworthy and a sizeable organisation. This still seems to be the case even after the recent Facebook data scandal.

While we recommend these social media websites as a good starting point for advertising for B2B businesses, it must be stressed that this is not a recommendation that would suit all.

Generally, we would recommend that all business have a presence on Twitter, even if in most cases for B2B businesses, spending advertising money on the platform does not make financial sense.

If you are a B2B business that believes that promoting your work culture and lifestyle is important, Instagram could prove to be an effective marketing platform, with the same to be said for businesses that offer a design-led service.

Luxury, High-End B2C Businesses

For high-end B2C businesses, where customer loyalty is everything, ensuring that you project a luxury lifestyle when marketing your products/services is crucial.

For this reason, social media sites that are based around images, notably Instagram and Pinterest are likely to be your best bet. More often than not, the best type of advertisements for these businesses tend to be the ones that don’t even sell products/services, but sell a lifestyle with aspirational imagery instead.

With high-end luxury B2C business traditionally having a very good understanding of their target audience, Instagram’s advertising platform, which allows you to target users based on a range of criteria, can be an excellent way to ensure you reach you desired audience. You can also make use of its retargeting feature to encourage customer loyalty.

Once again, while we recommend that you are present on Facebook and Twitter, in this case you may find that advertising on these platforms doesn’t yield the results you would expect.

Mid-Range B2C Businesses

Perhaps the hardest business sector to pin-down to one or two particular social media sites, mid-range B2C businesses have an abundance of social media sites available to them when it comes to advertising, making it all the more crucial they understand what sites work for them.

In general, we would recommend advertising on the big three social media sites: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. With these three, you are likely to ensure that you have the majority of your target audience covered.

In particular, we would make a point of recommending that you utilise retargeting extensively on all three platforms, ensuring that you stay in the mind of your website visitors at all time, with the majority of them unlikely to buy on their first visit to your website.

Local service business

When it comes to businesses that offer services to local residents, there is one platform that is crucial.

Facebook not only allows you to connect with most of your local audience, but also to advertise to them, with the social media site allowing you to target users by specific radiuses, perfect for local businesses who want to ensure their marketing budget is only being spent on their desired audience.

What’s more, with many of your prospective customers turning to Facebook for recommendations from friends or local users in a group, businesses who are able to amass a loyal local customer base, and can back this up with reviews on their page, can pick up a huge amount of business based on recommendations alone.

Setting up a Google Maps business page is also crucial for businesses should they wish to secure work based on their customer reviews.

Food/Drink Businesses

Arguably one of the most competitive industries, food/drink businesses need to more than most ensure their social media marketing works for them.

While, much like local service businesses, food and drink outlets can secure customers through online recommendations displayed on Facebook and Google Maps, the most successful don’t rely on word of mouth alone.

Successful food and drink businesses often rely heavily on showcasing their products online, creating a clamour amongst users to visit. Instagram, Facebook, and even Snapchat, can prove to be great platforms for this, allowing your imagery to do your marketing for you, as well as encouraging interactions in the form of tags, shares and forwards on your posts, widening your reach.

Retargeting previous social media page viewers on Instagram and Facebook can also be a great way to secure visits to your outlet, with you never knowing when your past visitors are looking for a location for their next meal out.

Ready to get started with social media advertisement? Check out our PPC Management service for more information of how we can help you.